French fries and eggplant.

My new favorite place in Cairo is the 10 foot by 3 foot concrete balcony in our apartment. At least half of the austere, dusty space is occupied by our clothes lines, which—despite the fancy hot water heater and a/c unit in our apartment—is still needed in order to dry our clothes. Two glass doors connect my bedroom to the balcony, along with two green shutters to give us privacy when we want it.

I've set a wooden folding chair out on the balcony and spend quiet, peaceful moments there, watching the sun create shadows on the buildings around us. From where I sit, I could see into nearly 20 other units around us. I couldn't reach out and touch the building next to us, but it seems close enough that I should. But even this concrete view is nice—below, neighbors have some potted plants, and there are a few trees sprouting up between the concrete, as well. A neighbor woman stood on her balcony last night, texting on her cellphone. We often watch the neighbors directly across us, who seem to have some kind of office in that unit. And every day, walking in and out of my apartment, I greet the doorman and his family. They live in a small room beside the front door, providing security and others odds-n-ends jobs for the tenants. Each of us pays $10/month to his family, and so the economy continues to limp along. And so we have the beginnings of a kind of urban community.

I finished reading "The Kite Runner" on the balcony after work two evenings ago, drinking cinnamon tea and propping my feet up on the railing. Now that I've finished Kite Runner, I've started reading an English translation of "Taxi," a best selling Egyptian book about conversations the author had with dozens of taxi drivers across Cairo. A literary social commentary, it was also written in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, which is hardly ever done. Arabic now is like Europe was before the printing press—when the people spoke French or Spanish or Italian, but wrote in Latin. People speak in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, but write in Modern Standard Arabic. "Taxi" has the same literary effect as Dante writing "inferno" in 13th century Italian. Because it is written in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, I have hopes to be able to start reading it by the end of the year. Inshahallah.

This morning, I drank my instant cappuccino—the best coffee you can get in this country—and spent some quiet moments on the balcony preparing myself for the day to come. I have big designs for this balcony—finding a small table to put out there for my books, coffee, and ashtray, buying a hookah. If anyone has Buddhist prayer flags from Seattle they'd like to send, I think those would make a nice finishing touch.

My latest discovery: a BAMF sandwich shop right across the street from our apartment. I was hungry and malnourished after returning from teaching English late last night (It may be true that I haven't eaten any fruit or vegetables in 5+ days. It's not entirely my fault, though. Inexplicably, all of the vendors stopped selling cucumbers and tomatoes. Last week, you couldn't take a step without bumping into a cuke and tomato vendor with carts spilling over with vegetables. This week, not a tomato in sight. People are obviously still eating vegetables in Egypt, though, so they have to be somewhere…. There is plenty of fruit—ok, ok, so I'm not off the hook, nutritionally speaking—but we're still on a quest to hunt down some cucumbers, without any success thus far).

I had spotted this sweet looking sandwich place, with plates piled high with falafel, roasted peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes (where did they find them??) and kofta. I had meant to buy a sandwich there earlier, but—don't judge me—had chickened out. Ordering food from local joints with no menu or prices listed can make me a bit bashful, afraid to say do something stupid. Now, this is completely irrational, I recognize—what's the biggest faux pas I could commit at a sandwich stand? I suppose I could try to order a ham sandwich, but I don't even know the Arabic word for "ham" (which wouldn't do me much good to know anyway!), so we're safe from that one. I also can get shy about shouldering my way into a crowd of customers, all of whom are a bit amused to hear the American girl ordering in Arabic.

But as I walked by last night, the stand was quiet. No customers around, no one crowded on the sidewalk near me. I almost passed it by, stomach growling, but made myself summon up a kernel of toughness (which has only ever been a façade, anyway). "Good evening," I said. "I would like an eggplant and French fry sandwich."
That was no mistake—eggplant and French fry sandwiches are delicious. 30 cents later, I was happily munching on my little half pita, stuffed with fantastically tasty vegetables. I'm not sure if vegetables bathed in grease helps me on my nutrition count, but hey, it's a start.